Saturday, May 9, 2009

Then we raised the top portion of the bed,and her head was like a trillium, growingup, out of the ground, in the woods,eyes closed, mouth open,and we put the Battle arias on, and when Iheard the first note, that was it, for me,I excused myself from the death-room guests,and went to my mother, and cleared a placeon the mattress, beside her arm, lifting the tubes, oxygen, dextrose, morphine,dipping in under them, and letting themrest on my hair, as if burying myselfunder a topsoil of roots, I pulledthe sheet up, over my head,and touched my forehead and nose and mouthto her arm, and then, against the warmsolace of her skin, I sobbed full out,unguarded, as I have not done near her;and I could feel some barrier between us dissolving,I could feel myself dissolving it,moving ever closer to her through it, till I wasall there, I went to my momfor comfort. And in her coma nothingdrew her away from giving me the basalkindness of her presence, I took a long turnas a child on earth. When the doctor came in,he looked at her and said, "I'd sayhours, not days." When he left, I atea pear with her, talking us through it,and walnuts - and a crow, a whole bouquetof crows came apart, outside the window.I looked for the moon and said, I'll be rightback, and ran down the hospital hall, and there, outside an eastern window,was the waxing gibbous, like a swimmer's headturned to the side half out of the water, mouthpulled to the side and back, to take breath,I could see my young mother, slimand strong in her navy one-piece, and see,in memory's dark-blue corridor,the beauty of her crawl, the hard, gracefuloverhand motion, as someone who saysthis way, to the others behind. And I went back,and sat with her alone, an hour, in the quiet, and I felt, almost, notafraid of losing her, I was socontent to have her beside me, unspeaking,unseeing, alive.